On Feb 5, 7:30*pm, Marc wrote:
On Feb 5, 5:41*pm, Larry Suter wrote:

When I got my DG-300, another owner suggested getting a cheap, rubber
door-stop from Home Depot and wedge it between the handle and the
inboard side of the slot as a safety.

I know of one pilot who destroyed his glider after he realized on the
turn the final that his gear was up, and had his head down fiddling
with a similar "safety", rather than up looking out for obstacles. *It
isn't necessary. *Over 25 years I've had close to 500 flights in
various DG-101, 300, 303, and 600, all of which have reputations for
gear collapses, and never had a single collapse. *The key is in
understanding how the gear mechanism works, and pushing the handle is
fully forward against the stop, before pushing it over against the
side wall.

And, if I'm not mixing this up with some other gliders I owned, there
is a gas cylinder in the mechanism that is intended to help hold the
gear in the over lock position, after some number of years this
cylinder loses pressure. *A simple pull test on the locking strut once
a year is enough to determine that it is still working correctly...

Marc

Thank you all for the good advise. PeterK